Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
by onthewayside
Summary: “Next time stick to candles and mood music. Trust me—your reproductive organs will thank you.” JE established fluff, with minor ShepWhump.


**Spoilers:** "The Long Goodbye"...with a touch of creative license on certain events.

**Disclaimer:** John and Liz belong to Atlantis, which belongs to some other lucky bast…wonderful executive company. One day though…one day…

**A/N:** No idea where this came from—a phrase just popped into my head one day, and out came this story. Sorry I haven't been posting lately, school's just gotten a whole lot tougher and a lot more unforgiving than it has been in the last two years. Sadly this drought of no writing will be continuing for a little while longer. Anyhoo, hope you enjoy the random fun!

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**Swing Low, Sweet Chariot**

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No matter how dirty a move it was considered, there was just something so unerringly satisfying about kicking a man in the crotch.

She couldn't quite place what exactly the reason was—perhaps watching the face slowly turning ashen white, or the wonderfully high-pitched scream they made as they tumbled to the floor—but all she knew was that it certainly felt good. Particularly when your target deserved it.

Crossing her arms over her chest, she stared down at her unwilling victim, waiting patiently for him to quit moaning and to stop rolling around on the floor. Sheesh, he was acting like he'd been stabbed and shot and then stabbed again for good measure. It wasn't as if she'd given the kick all it was worth—she'd just barely managed to put any force behind it, what with the surprise attack and all. After so many years of brothers finding numerous ways to exact torture, she had developed a natural reflex of jutting out her leg whenever someone sneaked up on her.

She just hadn't expected her assailant to fly smack dab into the sole of her shoes.

Still, even though she was beginning to feel a little guilty about the pain he was quite plainly going through, it was still no excuse for what he did. As far as she was concerned, he had it coming.

"Elizabeth," He finally managed to spit out in a rather high octave, ceasing his rolling to remain curled up on one side as his hands cradled his injured manhood. "What the _hell_ was **that** for?"

"For being an idiot, that's what," She retorted. "Honestly, John, you should know better."

"Know better? _Know better?_" He squeaked in outrage. "Know better than to try to welcome my beautiful wife home after having her gone for a week? That I shouldn't try to surprise her with my loving devotion when she's obviously been missing me since she left?"

Elizabeth smirked. "Actually, I enjoyed the time away. No one to hog the blankets or shove me around in their sleep. No snoring in the middle of the night. And, miracles of all miracles, the toilet seat was actually up whenever I went into the bathroom!" Her green eyes opened wide with mock wonder. "I'd almost forgotten what it was like to be able to go to the bathroom without fear."

"First you kick me in the 'nads, and now you want to rave about how much you miss the single life." John tried to sit up, winced and fell back down to the floor for a few moments of reprieve. "Is there something you're not telling me?"

"Like what?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe something along the lines of 'I hate my life and so I'm going to take my aggression out on my unsuspecting husband as therapy'? Or have you just decided to fall back into your favourite 'let's abuse John Sheppard' mode?"

"Although I have been tempted to do physical harm to you on more than one occasion, you can rest assured that it was not because I was having personal problems." She fixed him with a glare. "And since when have I ever intentionally set out to hurt you?"

He raised a brow, in almost perfect imitation of her look whenever she was ready to prove that she was right.

"Uh, hellooo? Alien consciousness? Phoebus? Thalan? Ringing any bells here?"

She sighed. "You're still using that old excuse? Come on, John, that was what? Five years ago? And we both agreed that neither of us was taking part in that whole mess."

"Maybe your alien consciousness was simply picking up on some latent urges to hurt me that you had stashed away in that brain of yours," John countered, sounding a little less squeaky as each second ticked by. "After all, you did admit that the kiss wasn't _entirely_ Phoebus' idea."

Despite still being curled in a semi-fetal position on the floor, and despite that his hands were still firmly ensconcing his precious anatomy, John had the audacity to grin with all of the smugness he could muster.

Rolling her eyes, Elizabeth took a step forward, crouched down to her husband's level and narrowed her eyes. "Keep on smirking like that and I'll put some real force behind my next kick."

"What do you mean '_more_ force'?" He demanded, finally sitting up so that their eyes met at the same height. "Your painful kick managed to bruise it enough as it is!"

"I didn't kick you," She replied smoothly. "I was reacting to an attack by a stranger who crept up behind me in an unlit room. I was trying to fend said attacker off. Your anatomy just happened to be in the way."

"And you didn't, for one tiny iota of a second, think that it might be the man you married who was just trying to give you a welcome home smooch?" John asked, eyeing her warily.

"No, because my husband normally doesn't sneak around dark rooms, saying 'Hey baby, how 'bout some lovin'?' in a really creepy voice."

"I was _trying_ to be romantic," John said as way of explanation, finally removing his hands from his precious package.

He sounded so much like a pouting young boy that she had to smile. "Yeah, well next time stick to candles and mood music. Trust me—your reproductive organs will thank you."

"Geez, try to do something nice for your woman once in a while, and _whammo_, a shot to the crotch," He muttered, still pouting as she helped ease him into a standing position. "You could at least thank me for trying to spice up our love life."

Shaking her head, she brushed away a few stray hairs from his forehead. "What with you going out on dangerous missions once a week, and me trying to keep this city in one piece, our love life has all the spice it needs. Using a sneak attack on an unsuspecting woman is not going to help that."

Wincing, he straightened, squared his shoulders and took a long, sulky look down to his pants. "I think you did some real damage down there. Heck, I don't even know if it'll be working properly after this."

"I'm sure it's working just fine," She reassured him. "Now why don't you go lie down and inspect the damage, while I take a nice hot shower."

"This inspection is going to be a two-man job, Liz. I don't think just one person's going to cut it."

Unable to stop the grin breaking out across her lips, she gave him a light shove on the shoulder as his arm came around her waist, pulling her closer. "You really _are_ hopeless, you know that?"

He merely smiled, a slow, heart-melting-ly warm smile, and pulled her tight against his chest. "So are you. Now how about you forgo that shower of yours and help me in this inspection?" Dropping a feathery kiss on the tip of her nose, he pressed his forehead to hers with an unmistakable look in his eyes. "Come on, you never could stop yourself from helping out someone in need, and the shower will still be there when we're done."

Laughing, she planted a quick kiss on his lips then wriggled free of his grasp before his reaching hands could keep her captive. "Nice try, but a full week of being on a planet whose idea of a bath is heated water in a bucket didn't work well for me. Besides, fifteen more minutes won't kill you, and it will give you time to figure out if you're…ah, _up_ to the occasion," She remarked with a suggestive waggle of her eyebrows.

"A lot can happen in fifteen minutes—especially if your kick really did do something wrong," John warned her as she began making her way to their bathroom. "Just don't be surprised if you come back and find a woman instead of your handsome man!"

"That wouldn't be so bad," Elizabeth called back over her shoulder. "At least the toilet seat would be left down!"

The door shut before he had time to reply. With a sigh, John shifted in his position a little, and grimaced at the answering pain flaring up from his injured appendage. Limping over to the bed, he stretched out across the sheets and decided that maybe an extra fifteen minutes might do him some good after all.

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_end_


End file.
